Digit.Aurora

Interest on History of FOSS - Talking @ UniPi

2009-04-07T23:42:00.002+03:00

Today I had the honour to give a talk on FOSS and copyleft in general, as a guest on University of Peireus. While talking on the subject, I noticed a particular interest on the history of free & open source movement and the history of copyrights.

In fact, mentioning the fact that "copyright" as a term is coined around 1800s, gave me the kick-start to persuade the audience that we should not consider "copyright on everything" as something "given" and "universally approved", but rather consider it as something "constructed" with profit in mind...

Moreover the talk headed to internet and the recent changes on Greek legislation (logging traffic etc) and the current adoption of GNU/Linux in Greece.

Some Live-CDs of Fedora 10 were a hit too! :) (Thanks to Spevack I have much of them now, but I'll rather keep them for FossComm 2009 on May ! )

FOSDEM 2009 - Day One

2009-02-12T00:54:00.003+02:00

The morning has come. We get on a bus that was constantly filling up with geeks and nerds (oh yeah!) and at about 10am we were at ULB where FOSDEM is held.

The Fedora Booth was almost already ready by the ambassadors that woke up early (and had the setup slot time) and with the addition of the swag we brought the booth was ready to rocking!

As the time proceeded and more XO laptops where added to our booth, more people where asking what where those and on what OS the run. The profound answer (Fedora) was the begging of sometimes a long conversation about the pros of Fedora and so on.

Those OLPC's where a hit!

My morning booth slot was nearly at end when I was preparing for the RPM Packaging Talk by Christoph Wickert. Our Talk room has so crowded when I found it (it was like hidden!) that I had to sit on the floor! Christoph gave us amazing tips about packaging which hopefully I will use real soon...

Right after Chitlesh Goorah gave a really inspiring talk about who he handles the whole Fedora Electronic Lab Project and I started thinking about a similar handling of an Art & Studio spin of Fedora, something that we later discussed with Chitlesh (between two beers :) )

The rest of the day was booth time for me with some brakes to snap some swag here and there.

After a long (but super-happy!) day at FOSDEM we went back at the hostel and then went out with the whole Fedora team for some good Belgian beer (like Kwak!)

Some nice photos added at this set.

FOSDEM 2009 - Day Zero

2009-02-06T18:52:00.002+02:00

Getting up early is never easy (at least for me) but when you have to catch a plane to Brussels for FOSDEM, getting up at 6:00 am was a piece of cake! With great excitement about the trip I got ready and got to the airport with Kostas just to meet the already assembled greek team.

After an incedent with the tickets of G.Nikolopoulos (we had booked for the previous week!) we got on plane and landed 3 hours later to Brussels! (after doing some random hacking with OLPC :P )

The airport there is quite new and big. I thought that it was 3 times bigger than El. Venizelos (the Athens' one). We took the train to Brussels-Center and during this transportation we had another misfortune loosing the Fedora Banner (that we had at Athens Digital Week)

The hostel (Les Ecrins) proved to be such a bargain! Cheap clean with free wi-fi. What else could you ask for? :)

After some lunch and resting we got prepared for the FOSDEM Beer Event that night at Delerium Bar which claims to have 2500 (!) different brands of beers! Many people gathered around and inside it and finally we got to meet in person the rest of the Fedora Community at FOSDEM. Joerg, Chitlesh and the other guys where so kind to give us all the answers we needed for events like FOSDEM (its my first time on such event).

After that we had some great time meeting new people, chatting bout projects and general stuff and also tasting many different beers! (I even got a Banana Beer! ... was kinda nice ... )

Lebanese fast-food straight afterward and quickly back to the hostel (with some architectural sightseeing in between :P ) for some resting cause tommorow will be a long day!

The rest of the photos can be viewed at this Flickr Set

Getting ready for FOSDEM #2

2009-02-01T13:07:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I received the Fedora buttons that I ordered for FOSDEM. Take a look at them at this Set in Flickr

There are 600 of them in medium and small size. I got it in pretty good price : 0,40 and 0,50 Euro each. I guess in Greece we are still in good prices.

The printing of the buttons was an idea by a fellow Greek Ambassador Konstantinos Antonakoglou

Although they are 600, I guess in 1 hour they will be vanished at FOSDEM :P

Thats the point of course... :)

Getting ready for FOSDEM

2009-01-27T23:48:00.004+02:00

I am going to FOSDEM!

Yeah, i booked everything and co-organized with Dimitris the Greek team (codenamed "boulouki" !) for the event. But instead of going just to watch I decided to do some logistics for Fedora @ FOSDEM.

Today I finally got the 1300 A4 3-folded flyers with generic info and contact info for Fedora Project. The were designed by a fellow Fedora Ambassador but i updated them a little bit. Also I got together the 800 A5 flyers for Fedora Electronic Lab a very nice and promissing project headed by another fellow Ambassador Chitlesh Goorah .

I was wondering whether I should combine the printing of the A4s Generic Flyers with something else that needed promotion at FOSDEM so I came up with the idea of flyers for FEL and Chitlesh was delighted to help me. The final result is just great!

(So maybe the iPhone photos are little crappy... :P)

Cant wait to use them on FOSDEM! And there are more to come before FOSDEM (buttons with Fedora logo, and hardware logistics!)

Fedora 10 Hackfest @ Patras

2008-09-25T01:20:00.002+03:00

Fedora 10 release is approaching...In order to sum up the activities need for the release on behalf of the Greek team, we are organizing a Hackfest on weekend 11-12/10/08 in Patras. More info on fedoraproject.gr

Stay tuned for photos and report... :)

Fedora @ Athens Digital Week !

2008-09-02T03:14:00.002+03:00

Being a memeber of Fedora Project in Greece (http://fedoraproject.gr) I am happy to announce (and trying to contribute in organizing here) the participation of Fedora in Athens Digital Week , a great event that is going to take place in Athens from 13 to 19 October 2008. Await for photos and posts from the experience! ;)

Arch Design 3 - Beta

2008-02-22T01:55:00.002+02:00

My progress on designing an exhibition facility for a piece of modern art, is beginning to produce presentable results. On the following rendering the form of the construction acting as roof (for the frontal part of the building) is depicted.

The shadows created on this rendering are considered the worse possible, given the position (angle) of the sun. Thus the percentage of coverage is efficient (?). I think i am going to need some help from my tutor on this.

Shigeru Ban - Wall less house

2008-01-07T18:56:00.000+02:00

My second exercise on Architectural Design was a reconstruction (in scale) and analysis of a medium house of a prominent modern architect of our choice. I choose Shigeru Ban's Wall less house in Nagano, Japan part of his Case Study Houses. Minimalistic and outrageously simple was the definite love at first sight for me.

So...the result of my exercise was

3 1/100 scale models (depicting the different arrangements of the furnitures)
1 1/50 cross-section of the building
1 1/50 scale model of the building (with surroundings)

Photos of them can be seen in a photo set here (Flickr)

Takis Zenetos - To strogilo

2007-11-22T20:40:00.000+02:00

At last!
My first exercise as a student in Architecture... It's about a school in Agios Dimitrios (Athens) build by Takis Zenetos in '70s. I tried to depict the main volumes of the building and their connection.

The outcome was a plotter printed 50x70cm poster about the building.Here in electronic format (not original quality):
The programs used:

AutoCAD 2008
3d Studio Max 2008
Mental Ray
Photoshop CS3

And many hours on them... :)

Radiation - Not harmfull for life (sort of life in fact)

2006-10-20T15:37:00.000+03:00

"A colony of bacteria found 2.8 kilometers below the Earth's surface in a South African gold mine is able to sustain itself without energy from the Sun. While sub-surface colonies of microorganisms utilizing sulfur (mostly near deep sea hydrothermal vents) is not new, this particular colony is unusual. The colony does it by relying on radioactive uranium to split water into hydrogen gas. Thus, instead of solar energy and photosynthesis, this species relies on radioactive materials and sulfur/hydrogen to facilitate its energy needs."
With such bacterias in mind anyone could imagine another planet in space that can host life form like this...Such a remarkable discovery!...
After that some people must redifine the comment for the neutron nuclear bomb...("the neutron bomb destroyes every lifeform...")

Maya 8.0

2006-10-18T18:06:00.000+03:00

After a long time using AutoCAD (near my father) I descided to fiddle with Maya 8.0, the famous cousin of AutoCAD...Just for educational reasons...
Autodesk Maya Product Information

C'mon baby light my....PC!

2006-10-10T16:52:00.000+03:00

When you are bored...nothing to do...ideas come to your mind!Unfortunately for some PC you also decide to commit such actions!
Results : see the pictures ...
The idea for the "lighting" tower was from Haroulis(as always has the most kafrous ideas)

Gnome vs KDE

2006-09-29T07:48:00.000+03:00

As a native Windows user from 1990 and a fan of *nix systems since 1997 I came to a point where my free time is pleanty enough to migrate to the NEW world!i 've used Linux(mandrake 10/KDE) before but now the time has come for advanced usage....And here is the question...."Gnome or KDE???"....after reading this one (http://www.illusionary.com/GNOMEvKDE.html) I would definatelly choose Gnome!But ,seriously, I choose Gnome for the really realistic approach on desktop handling.Ubuntu or Fedora was another question but i ended up to 2nd just because i dont like the preordering of ALL things in a OS....Today is my first real day with Linux...My first real day with PCs.

Eduardo Souto Moura

2006-09-26T20:18:00.000+03:00

Yesterday i saw a really nice presentation of the works of Eduardo Souto Moura,the famous Portuguese architect,presented by himself.The way his mind is working on architectural projects is GREAT!He analyzed a stadium project.His presentation a real Must for every one in the world of architecture.
A link for his work....
http://www.cidadevirtual.pt/blau/moura.html

Nice Hacker Site...

2006-09-19T00:49:00.000+03:00

Very nice essay about Hacker Culture.Maybe it is analyzing to much the other definitions but still is OK!
http://webzone.k3.mah.se/k3jolo/HackerCultures/index.htm

Watzaa!

2006-09-15T16:16:00.000+03:00

This gonna be the official Blog of Papadeas Pierros....exposing his thoughts,hobbies,activities....Hope u enjoy it and post some nice comments...